The Innocents Abroad


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CHAPTER XLIX.  
We took another swim in the Sea of Galilee at twilight yesterday, and  
another at sunrise this morning. We have not sailed, but three swims are  
equal to a sail, are they not? There were plenty of fish visible in the  
water, but we have no outside aids in this pilgrimage but "Tent Life in  
the Holy Land," "The Land and the Book," and other literature of like  
description--no fishing-tackle. There were no fish to be had in the  
village of Tiberias. True, we saw two or three vagabonds mending their  
nets, but never trying to catch any thing with them.  
We did not go to the ancient warm baths two miles below Tiberias. I had  
no desire in the world to go there. This seemed a little strange, and  
prompted me to try to discover what the cause of this unreasonable  
indifference was. It turned out to be simply because Pliny mentions  
them. I have conceived a sort of unwarrantable unfriendliness toward  
Pliny and St. Paul, because it seems as if I can never ferret out a place  
that I can have to myself. It always and eternally transpires that St.  
Paul has been to that place, and Pliny has "mentioned" it.  
In the early morning we mounted and started. And then a weird apparition  
marched forth at the head of the procession--a pirate, I thought, if ever  
a pirate dwelt upon land. It was a tall Arab, as swarthy as an Indian;  
young-say thirty years of age. On his head he had closely bound a  
gorgeous yellow and red striped silk scarf, whose ends, lavishly fringed  
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